IBM’s Watson is on the move. With the new ability to quickly develop clever personalized treatment strategies for cancer patients, Watson is making its debut in hospitals around the world—from the US to India, Korea, and China. Earlier this month, a medical center in Jupiter, Florida, announced it too was welcoming the famed, Jeopardy-winning computing system into its hospital rooms.
IBM to set Watson loose on cancer genome data
But, there’s one place where Watson isn’t moving: The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. In fact, Watson is frozen there. And it’s more than just a computer glitch.
According to a blistering audit by the University of Texas System, the cancer center grossly mismanaged its splashy program with IBM, which started back in 2012. The program aimed to teach Watson how to treat cancer patients and match them to clinical trials. Watson initially met goals and impressed center doctors, but the project hit the rocks as MD Anderson officials snubbed their own IT experts, mishandled about $62 million in funding, and failed to follow basic procedures for overseeing contracts and invoices, the audit concludes.
IBM pulled support for the project back in September of last year. Watson is currently prohibited from being used on patients there, and the fate of MD Anderson’s partnership with IBM is in question. MD Anderson is now seeking bids from other contractors who might take IBM’s place.